


Left the Prairies in My Heart

by APgeeksout



Category: Heartland (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s02e01 Ghost Horse, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-11
Updated: 2014-12-11
Packaged: 2018-03-01 00:20:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2752565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/APgeeksout/pseuds/APgeeksout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ty calls; Jack answers.  How else does family work?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Left the Prairies in My Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [donutsweeper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/donutsweeper/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, donutsweeper!

The connection is lousy, the way calls made on a cell phone always tend to come through here – just another reason Jack's never had much use for the things – and he can hardly hear the speaker on the other end over the good, cheerful noise of Amy's birthday party spilling in from the next room. He's fixing to tell whoever it is that they'll have to call Lou back – phone calls are most generally for Lou, Heartland business or her own, so it seems like a safe bet that this one will be, too – on her own cell or in the morning, when the hiss and crackle of the line resolve into a voice he recognizes, however strained and slurred the words might be. 

“Jack? I, uh – It's Ty. I think I'm in some trouble.”

A wiser man would probably have led with other questions – what kind of trouble? where have you been? – but Jack's always led with his heart where his family's concerned, and of all the regrets he's stacked up through the years, that'll never be one of them. So instead of any of the other perfectly good questions he could, maybe should, ask, he finds himself groping around the phone-stand for scratch paper while he barks into the receiver. 

“Where are you?” 

 

The street Ty named for him is one that cuts through the heart of one of those big city neighborhoods that've always made Jack feel boxed in. All neon signs and security grates and the mouths of narrow alleys gaping dark beneath busted out streetlamps. 

He rolls down the pavement as slowly as he dares, scanning the faces of the half-occupied buildings for street numbers or any sign of the boy. He finds a storefront stenciled with an address that tells him he's found the right block, and then his headlights pick out the shape of the old pick-up, heavy and dark and not so much parked as abandoned at the side of the street. 

Brawling in dark alleys is really a younger man's game – later, on the long road back to Hudson, with Ty bleeding in the passenger seat and his own hands tingling from abraded knuckles and ebbing adrenaline, it will occur to him that it was probably a damn fool thing to do – but it's not like he's a stranger to throwing a good punch, and he's got the advantage of surprise. The two thugs clearly don't imagine that Ty might have anyone in his corner. 

Between the two of them, they do enough damage to Ty's attackers to create a little separation, space enough to escape with their hides mostly intact, if they hurry. 

“Hi, Jack.” 

The boy's voice, breathless and dazed – like even he might not have believed he'd have backup tonight – rings in his ears as he propels them away from the two prone bodies and toward the truck. 

 

“How're your ribs?”

“Not fun, but not broken either,” Ty says, shifting in the seat again, holding himself straight and stiff against the worn upholstery. 

Thinking about how the boy came to know so authoritatively what broken ribs do and don't feel like makes his hands clench hard around the steering wheel and own chest tighten with a fury he suppresses for Ty's benefit. A fist to the right jaw can be satisfying, even if it ultimately makes more problems than it solves, but it's too late now for his anger to do anything but rebound off of Ty, make Jack one less entry on the already-too-short list of people he thinks it's safe to trust. 

“You're not dizzy? Or cold?” 

“Still good. Really.” He even smirks a little. “It's mainly just my handsome face, so unless you want to take me to Hudson's best plastic surgeon, I really am fine.”

“Don't know as anyone's got skills enough to fix that mug of yours, but I've seen more than one pretty cowboy keel over after the rodeo after bleeding internally through the whole show, so tell me if that changes, smart guy.” 

“Deal.” He's quiet for awhile after that, squirming in his seat now and then, his posture giving away the pain he's not owning up to. 

Jack thinks about arthritis, about the stiff, dull ache that he doesn't acknowledge on even the coldest mornings or the longest nights. “Got some aspirin in the glovebox,” he offers. “Take a few and I'll leave you in peace for a few more miles.” 

 

The reunions go just about as well as Jack would've figured. Mallory talks tough, but she forgives easy, and some of the tension slips off of Ty's shoulders even as she squeezes him too tight. Amy's the harder case, staring him down, hurt and angry and stubborn and so like Marion that it takes Jack's breath away even as he slips into the house to leave them to it. 

It's not long 'til he hears Amy's boots tromping up the stairs, and he gives her a minute to settle in her room before he follows. That too goes about as well as he'd expected, but better to let her blow off steam in his general direction than take it out on the boy or herself. She's enough her mother's daughter to already know the answer to _why did you bring him here, Grandpa?_ even if she's too hurt to own it just now.

 

It's been a long night on top of a long day, and Jack's bed is calling to him loudly, but he's never been the kind to turn in with a job half-done. Ty, leaning against a piece of fencing with a steady hand extended to the skittery mustang and blood still seeping from the slices and scrapes on his face, is a picture of unfinished business. 

The mustang huffs out an agitated breath and hustles over to the far side of the paddock at Jack's approach. They watch him pace the far fence line for a while in silence before he speaks. 

“Your bed's still in the loft, extra quilts in the cedar chest. But you ought to go on in and take a shower first. Clean out all those cuts.”

Ty nods absently, eyes still on the mustang, now tossing its mane wildly and pawing at the soft earth in the moonlight. 

“You forgot some of your clothes... before,” he says, not quite managing to avoid the awkward pause. “I left them in the bathroom for you.” He doesn't wait for the boy to move before he heads back into the house; he knows Ty will follow when he's ready. 

 

He's in the kitchen by the time he hears the shower. Breakfast is only a few short hours away now, but he doesn't trust that Ty's had anything like a good meal today. Maybe longer. It makes his own gut gnaw to imagine how bad things must have been – and for how long – before Ty would have let himself call Heartland for help. So, here he is, scrambling eggs and nursing a cup of coffee. 

When Ty shuffles in quietly, Jack half turns from the stove to look him over. He might get by without a black eye, but, underneath the smear of antibiotic ointment from the first aid kit Jack left out prominently on the bathroom basin, the cut on his cheek is a nasty one. The way he's moving, slow and stiff, suggests that he's all sore muscles tightened up over the long drive back home, layered over a bone-deep tiredness that Jack knows the feel of too well not to recognize it written all over the boy. 

“Make yourself some toast, if you want it,” he says, speaking up before Ty sits himself down, sparing him the effort of hauling his achy bones out of the chair. “Think Lou bought a loaf of that raisin bread yesterday.” 

Ty crosses the room and takes the bread from one of the high cupboards, bends to retrieve the toaster from the cabinet where it lives when it's not taking up precious counter-top real estate. He hasn't stayed away so long that he doesn't remember his way around the kitchen, and as Jack reaches him the honey from its cubbyhole among the coffee fixings, he finds that that's enough to loosen the knot that's been sitting in his chest since he picked up the phone. 

He sets two plates of eggs on the table and smiles as Ty tucks in to his with more energy than he'd've guessed the boy had left in him. They eat mostly in silence – at least doing Amy the courtesy of pretending that they're the only two still awake in the house – but it's the easy quiet of people who know they don't need to entertain each other, who trust that there will be time to say everything that needs saying. 

While he clears the table, Ty heaves himself out of the chair with a quiet groan and shrugs into a jacket, preparing to go claim his bed. “Can I ask you something?” he says quietly, voice barely carrying across the kitchen. 

“Seems that way.” 

Ty snorts at the joke, old as it is, and Jack turns away from the sink and moves to walk him at least as far as the door. Maybe all the way to the barn. Sentimental as he's feeling just now, he'd probably tuck him right into bed if he thought the boy would stand for it. 

“Why'd you bring me back here?”

“People keep asking me that tonight,” he says, regretting it pretty well instantly when he sees the recognition of who the rest of _people_ must be dawn over the boy's battered features. He settles a hand on the back of Ty's neck, under the collar of his coat and the hair that needs cutting, and steers him out of the kitchen and into the firelight of the main room. “Where should I have brought you but home?”


End file.
